Jerusalem, the Church of Ascension

Rafeh Abu Raya and Zubair ‘Adawi

23/01/2006

During April–May 1999 a salvage excavation and documentation were conducted at an underground building in the outer courtyard of the Church of Ascension on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem (Permit No. A-3049; map ref. NIG 18179/67328; OIG 13179/17328), while touristy development work was carried out at the site. The excavation, on behalf of the Antiquities Authority and financed by the East Jerusalem Development Corporation, was directed by R. Abu Raya and Z. ‘Adawi, with the assistance of the staff of the Jerusalem District of the Antiquities Authority, M. Konin (surveying), Y. Gorin-Rosen (glass) and T. Sagiv (photography).

A rectangular area (8 × 10 m; Fig. 1) to the west of an ancient underground vault, damaged by mechanical equipment, was opened and largely excavated. The walls of two rooms, built next to the exterior western wall of the Church of Ascension complex, were exposed. The northern (L105; 2.5 × 4.0 m) and southern (L104; 1.5 × 2.0 m) rooms were accessed via a narrow corridor (L121; width c. 1.2 m) that separated them. In the middle of the common wall shared by both rooms (W1–W2) was an entrance threshold (L200) that led east, via a stepped passage, toward the underground vault. Remains of a flagstone pavement (c. 0.2 × 0.3 m, c. 6 cm thick) in the two rooms and the corridor were set at nearly the same level. Other pavement remains, which abutted W1–W2, indicated that a courtyard probably existed west of this wall.

A rectangular entrance (0.3 × 0.4 m) was installed in the middle of W2, the western wall of L105, which led to a septic pit (below W4, W7 and W8), whose ceiling was a narrow vault oriented east–west that had survived in its entirety (1.0 × 4.3 m, depth c. 1.6 m). It can be assumed that the entrance and the septic pit were part of a toilet facility connected with the northern room. Adjacent to the western wall (W1) of L104, the southern room, a breach in the floor (c. 0.6 × 0.7 m) was exposed. It led to another septic pit covered with a vault (c. 2 × 3 m, depth c. 1.7 m) and was part of the toilet and corridor foundations above it.

Dozens of pottery fragments were recovered from the excavation area, half of them glazed. They formed a homogenous assemblage dating to the Mamluk period (thirteenth–fourteenth centuries CE). Several potsherds from the disturbed fill belonged to the Byzantine period and the beginning of the Ottoman period. The glass vessels were also dated mostly to the Mamluk period. It seems that the two rooms were used as toilets by the guards and visitors to the Church of Ascension during the Mamluk period.

The Vaults (Fig. 2). The vaults to the east of the excavation area were examined. The groined northern vault, which was later and belonged to a traditional square building (c. 6.5 × 6.5 m, height 3.6 m), stood next to the earlier southern vault that was on a lower level. The vaults were connected by four steps. The southern vault had an irregular layout (c. 5 × 9 m, height 5 m) and was accessed by way of two entrances: a northern entrance (width 2.5 m), set in the later connection between the two vaults, and a western entrance in the middle of the vault’s western side that joined the narrow corridor (Loci 121, 200; 0.5 × 5.0 m) with the toilet rooms exposed in the excavation. The southern wall of the southern vault was built at a later period and utilized for the minaret construction of the adjacent Ez-Zawiya el-As‘adiya Mosque. The eastern wall the minaret that severed this vault belonged to this building phase and was erected a short distance from the northwestern side of the octagonal-shaped Crusader Church of the Ascension. In the northern part of this vault two similar niches (c. 1.3 × 2.0 m, depth 0.7 m) were installed opposite each other, one facing east and the other––west.

The architectural connections of the two vaults to their surroundings indicate that they were part of the Crusader Church of Ascension and the Monastery of the White Brothers complex. The date of their construction is unclear; however, they were used contemporaneously as oil presses until the twentieth century, based on the remains found in them––a crushing basin and a millstone. The entrance to the oil press was by way of a rectangular doorway (width 1.2 m) set in the western wall of the northern vault.